CBRACKE
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Over the past week of enjoying my recent conversion to the land of HDTV, I’ve been subjected to countless runs of the Go Phone ad that features singer, “Meatloaf” and his family reworking what I view as one of the most irritating songs I’ve heard during my 31 (almost 32) years of life. “Paradise by the Dashboard Lights” is an ironic title considering I’m in anything but paradise whenever I hear it. Needless to say, over the last seven days it’s become abundantly clear that Meatloaf–whether the singer or the rectangular chunk of meat–has the same nauseating effect on me.
I’m getting equally as disgusted with the obsessive tracking of Francisco Liriano’s shortcomings in his return from Tommy John surgery. The latest was the report of his first start since being sent back to Triple-A Rochester, where he gave up five hits, four runs, and five walks while striking out three. As the southpaw was making that start, his manager Ron Gardenhire chimed in on the situation, telling the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, “I think that he was a little–how would I put it?–confused.” “Because he really thought he had it all. He thought he could come up here and dominate some people. And it was an eye opener for him, which is good. Because you need to have a little fear in you in this game.”
The guy is 17 months post op and it seems like he’s already dead to some people. This despite the fact that it seems we’ve seen plenty of cases in which a pitcher doesn’t really return to form until two years after undergoing the surgical procedure. Of course this flies in the face of research done by Dr. Brett W. Gibson of the Penn Sports Medicine Center in Philadelphia and his colleagues. Their studies showed that of 68 Major League Baseball pitchers who underwent the surgery between 1998 and 2003, most (82 percent) returned to play within an average of 18.5 months post-surgery with no change in average earned run average or walks or hits per innings pitched. On top of that, approximately one in seven pitchers in the majors has had the procedure and many of them are still pitching in the league which obviously suggests they are effective.
So Liriano sits at Triple-A and could be in the minors for the foreseeable future. In fact, I wouldn’t be stunned if he was demoted even further down the farm to Double-A or even High-A, because sooner or later the most important thing (even more so than the healing process) becomes rediscovering his confidence. Sure, he has to heal to be able to pitch, but that is all for naught if his confidence is shaken. While I may be in the minority, I’m not ready to dismiss the possibility that he could once again become a very effective pitcher. Given the fact he needs to address what was a wicked delivery which subsequently led to the injury, he may not be quite as dominant as he was in his rookie season, but very few pitchers are.
As a fantasy owners I’m simply not ready to give up on him. In fact, as someone who limits his participation to keeper leagues as much as possible, I’m a little intrigued by the fact that a season like this could drive his price down next season. It could present a great buying opportunity if more and more fantasy owners jump off the bandwagon. I don’t know about you, but I’m willing to listen to that damn Go Phone commercial another 12 times if it means I have an opportunity to make a thrifty acquisition that still possesses long-term potential.
Photo courtesy of the San Francisco Chronicle
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